Why do you demand respect? This isn't supposed to be about ego gratification. This isn't about you. Or your compatriots. It is about making this a better country. If you are in politics to get respect and appreciation, you are in it for the wrong reasons. All of these candidates recognize the changing political terrain, and all have put great time and effort into their web efforts. The fact that one candidate doesn't bend over and kiss the asses of one particular group shouldn't matter. Like I said, I think Hillary will respond to DFA in good time, and it is unfair to assume at this point that she will not. But it is also unfair to make that a prerequisite for support. Also DFA does not= the netroots.

Believe it or not there were people volunteering for Dean, I met some of them in Iowa, who did not use computers. They were just plain liberals who were involved, and always had been involved. Some netroots types, not you necessarily but certainly others, have gotten so full of themselves that they act like there wasn't a vital progressive movement, better yet, a LIBERAL movement before they started being active. That this "movement" is something new. It isn't. There was and there always has been a progressive movement. The attitude some seem to have is that most people were dumb and stupid until the internet brought the few smart ones together. There is an interesting cover story in the current New Republic on the netroots, and the author correctly points out that there is the same kind of eliteness and insider snobbery evolving in this new "movement" as the participants have always accused political insiders of having.

When you talk of wanting "respect" and demanding proper respects be paid, you sound like a typical political insider. Suddenly your interests matter more than the next person's. When I see Liza threatening to ban people who criticize Markos Zuniga, I realize the author of that New Republic article is right, the netroots "movement" is starting to become insular, the insiders protecting each other over and above protecting the common cause. It is becoming a clique. A typical political power clique. When that happens, it becomes everything that we have been fighting against.

You demand respect, you want politics as usual. Period. True "people power" only comes when the average person doesn't have more respect, more power than the next person. When no one person or one group can make politicians serve their interests above the great common interest, no matter how great a 'movement' is involved.